Baka-nin posted:

Two books come to mind,

Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic by Maurice Meisner, its a very informative work from the 1911 revolution period up to the early 1990s. Does a very good job of explaining the ideological goal post shifting and political factionalism of the CPC and combines it with an analysis of the economy and political situation of the PRC as it actually existed and the gulf of this with the official versions.

China's New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong by Jude Blanchette. This one is an investigation into current PRC and its political climate, focussing on relationship between the CPC and its officially tolerated (mostly) sometimes opposition sometimes auxiliary movements on the nationalist and "maoist" currents and what's been going on since the early 2000s to Xi's premiership. Ends just as the Jasic unionisation campaign was just starting.